Les and I were reviewing our live customer projects and pipeline on Friday, and noticed a common thread running through both; the desire (by our customers) to do something differently next year, something that will drive growth and competitive advantage. Despite, or hopefully because, being in either Q3 or Q4, they are all looking at ways to improve the way they do things, as they know that ‘peddling faster’ won’t deliver the desired outcome.
Last week we ran a two-day workshop with a sales enablement management team around better engagement within their team, and with their internal customers, sales and service delivery. Admirable. A software vendor has asked us to rerun the Partner Engagement 360 we did 15 months ago as it drove 15% growth with one of their top five channel partners. We are also working with someone on a project called Eleven Things…, which refers to 11 initiatives identified at a Q3 management meeting, all focused on things that need to be done better in the next FY starting in January.
Our pipeline includes two opportunities to work with major global vendors to assess levels of account engagement and alignment and, most importantly, the level of new opportunities across circa 25 global accounts, as a pre-cursor to their annual Account Planning cycle.
As for us, we have vowed to qualify opportunities more rigorously, and focus on the value we deliver to our customers.
So, what are you going to do differently next year?